Here in the northeast, our Bonito Conclave last weekend taught us a bunch of things about toothy critters. Northerns, exotics from the tropics, cuda, and a number of other species require wire tippets to prevent bite-thru's.

With the availability of American Wire Co's various # test braided tippets, many of us have been surviving with a variety of knots but meeting inconsistent results.

As of the past weekend, we figured out a few things:

a) leader to wire tippet - surgeon's or triple surgeon's knot

<font size="1">I used to use an allbright but had some rockets pop that like nothing. I went to a perfection loop with double clinch, which was tough and provided the added benefit of keeping a fly ready with steel attached, but it's bulky and obvious and not necessarily a strong joint.</font><!--1-->

b) wire to fly - any terminal knot you can tie without damaging the wire close to the eye. Palomar if you can pull it off, improved clinch, loop knot, etc.

The best all around approach if you need to swap between stealthy and protected is to keep a surgeon's or perfection loop somewhere up the leader and use loop connections to swap from one to the other. We needed this for albies / bonito when spanish mackerel and bluefish were in the area too.

Am/wire costs from 6-8 bucks per roll and comes in a range of # ratings. In the upper sizes it's the same as less expensive brands, but in light wire it can be tied in a similar fashion to stiff mono (almost).

Special thanks to <!--http--><a href="http://seaduckhunt.com/marine.html" target="_blank">Capt. Ruben Perez</a><!--url--> for the surgeon's suggestion and the lengths of wire that tamed toothy critters! (of course I didn't have mine on the boat when I needed it)